One of the scenes that stood out the most at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics wasn’t during the competition. It was a moment shortly after the last skater’s score was announced in the ladies free skate – the score that determined podium placement for three talented athletes.

American skater Alysa Liu realized she had just won the gold, but one of her first actions was to celebrate the bronze medal won by a 17-year-old first-time Olympian from Japan. Asked about that moment during an interview, she said:

“Human connection is what I’m all about and I love sisterhood. I’m an older sister myself and I carry it on with – I would call her a teammate of sorts. We’re all in this sport together so we share the love.”

Lack of connection and loneliness were contributing factors to the burnout that led Liu to step away from the sport at age 16. Her unprecedented comeback has been fueled in part by investing in relationships that keep her grounded and discovering a higher purpose for skating than simply winning.

Alysa’s story reminds me of some lessons that I learned about burnout earlier in my career. I wrote about Alysa’s story and my own journey for SmartBrief on Leadership. I hope it is a helpful reminder that reconnecting relationally and finding meaning in what we do can help us find the path forward.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

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Have you ever experienced a moment of clarity in your own life as you were swept up in reading a good book? Maybe it was the way a person behaved that gave you insight into an issue you were wrestling with or something a character said that resonated with you.

Some years ago, George K. Kaufman and Lisa K. Libby published a fascinating article in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled “Changing Beliefs and Behavior Through Experience-Taking.” They explained ”experience-taking” as “the imaginative process of spontaneously assuming the identity of a character in a narrative and simulating that character’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors, goals, and traits as if they were one’s own.” Their research found that reading narrative can result in “experience-taking” that produces changes in self-judgments, attitudes, and behavior that align with the character’s on the written page.

I’m not surprised. Many books by or about leaders I admire have had a positive effect on my beliefs and behaviors. I may never be the president of the United States trying to pull together a splintering nation, for example, but reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin reinforced my approach of listening to divergent opinions when seeking to make optimal decisions, especially in an environment of division and distrust.

What’s on your summer reading list this year? Personally, I gravitate toward non-fiction books. No surprise, I tend to read them through the lens of connection, looking for attitudes, uses of language, and behaviors that connect people and help individuals and groups thrive. Here are three books I highly recommend that I believe will inspire and bring out the best in you. By stepping into each of these great leader’s shoes, you can learn things that will benefit your own career.

American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce G. Hoffman
Kudos to Bryce Hoffman for capturing the miraculous turnaround of Ford Motor Company in such engaging detail. Hoffman sets the stage by describing the toxic culture that existed at Ford before Alan Mulally arrived to be its new CEO in September 2006. From the start of Mulally’s presence at Ford, he demonstrates that he is not a stereotypical CEO. He’s sensitive to and respects the dignity of all stakeholders, irrespective of status and power. He speaks the truth. In implementing his Working Together management and leadership system, Mulally led the transformation of Ford from near bankruptcy to one of the most profitable automotive companies in the world and the #1 automotive brand in the U.S. Among other things, this book helped me see, as Alan’s parents instilled in him early in life, “by working together with others, you can make the most positive contribution to the most people.”

My Personal Best: Life Lessons from An All-American Journey by John Wooden and Steve Jamison
There are quite a few books on the legendary UCLA men’s basketball coach John Wooden, one of the winningest coaches in history. I am especially fond of this one because it tells Wooden’s life story — the back story, if you will, of the life experiences and people who influenced him and the development of his “pyramid of success” and “personal best” philosophy. Wooden’s love for his wife, Nell, and for his players will inspire you. He had a profound impact on his players, including the superstars Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton, as evidenced by the relationships he had with them long after they put the ball down as a UCLA Bruin.

Wooden strove to develop players who had the desire to challenge themselves and give their best efforts to prepare to win. “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail,” he told them. To Wooden, “Success is peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you are capable.” Their competitive greatness would not be reflected in the final score of a game but in the work they did to become the best player, and person, they were capable of becoming.

A teacher-philosopher-coach, Wooden realized that defining success was only part of it. He would need to show young people how to achieve it and that led him to articulate the 25 attitudes and behaviors in his Pyramid of Success. He explained that they were “a combination of personal qualities and values that I believe are intrinsic to making the effort to reach your potential as a person.” They are relevant beyond the world of sports, such as Team Spirit (A genuine consideration for others. An eagerness to sacrifice personal interests of glory for the welfare of all), Intentness (Set a realistic goal. Concentrate on its achievement by resisting all temptations and being determined and persistent.), and Alertness (Be observing constantly. Stay open-minded. Be eager to learn and improve.). Some 75 years since Coach Wooden first settled on these particular qualities and arranged them in the iconic triangular shape, his Pyramid of Success continues to motivate people. (Observant fans of the series “Ted Lasso” would have seen it taped to the wall in the office Coach Lasso shared with Coach Beard.)

This book helped me see that we don’t always control outcomes but we do control our own effort, and when we give our best effort over time, positive results tend to come.

Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk
This book makes people aware of Abraham Lincoln’s lifelong struggle with “melancholy “(i.e. depression) and his determination and ability to carry on through adversity and trials, including the death of his son Willie, his wife Mary Todd’s struggle with emotional health issues, and times when the Civil War was not going well for the Union. Shenk’s thesis is that Lincoln’s experience living with depression gave him the strength of character, and especially the humility and perseverance, that made him the great leader he was. The chapter on Lincoln’s mindset titled “Comes Wisdom to Us” is a masterpiece that helped me in my own journey of faith.

I hope you will pick up one or all of these books in the coming weeks. Let me know what you think of them by emailing me at mike@connectionculture.com.

Photo by Alexandra Fuller on Unsplash

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Do you feel like the inner flame that motivates you in your personal and professional life has dimmed? Answering a few questions will provide insight into how you can rekindle your inner light. Before we pose the questions, though, let us share a story that illuminates why contemplating them is so valuable.

Doug Conant’s Story: Being Honored and Honoring Others

Doug Conant is the leader who turned around Campbell Soup Company when he served as President and CEO (2001-2011). We’ve previously written about how Conant held senior leaders accountable for improving employee engagement at Campbell’s and the tremendous difference it made.

We had a long conversation with Conant recently and came away very encouraged by how his views on leadership are aligned with what we advocate about connection and fostering connection cultures. In particular, we wanted to know more about him as a person and how he developed into a leader who cares about people. Who had influenced him? We learned that his journey to the top of the corporate ladder hadn’t come without obstacles.

Albert Schweitzer once wrote: “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” At a tough juncture in Doug Conant’s career that person was Neil MacKenna.

Conant was a 32-year-old director of marketing at Parker Brothers Toy and Game Company near Boston when he was stunned to hear the VP of marketing tell him, “Your job has been eliminated. Clear out your desk by noon.” He was hard-working and competent, and now fired. How could this be happening? Hurt, angry, crushed, humiliated, self-pity, dread are words he uses to capture his reaction to the place he now found himself in. (How many workers cut loose in the wave of recent lay-offs can relate?)

The exit package included outplacement counseling and that is how Conant met the man who would greatly shape him as a leader. Conant describes Neil MacKenna as a wonderful, tough-as-nails, crusty New Englander. He was a decorated veteran of World War II and graduate of Harvard Business School who “didn’t suffer whining or a victim-y ’poor me’ attitude.” Throughout the outplacement process, Conant was struck by how MacKenna was fully present, listened intently and earnestly, and genuinely wanted to be of help. He felt honored by MacKenna. A bond of connection formed between them that would last until MacKenna passed away almost 20 years later.

At their second meeting, MacKenna gave Conant the take-home assignment to write out his life story, by hand, and with as much detail as he could. That kind of thorough self-reflection was not something Conant had done before. When they were back together to talk it over, MacKenna called Conant out on the disconnect between the man coming through on paper and the man Conant presented to others. As Conant recounts in The Blueprint: 6 Practical Steps to Lift Your Leadership to New Heights, MacKenna told him, “What you’re showing to the world is a modest guy who goes with the flow. But the Doug who wrote this story is a leader and a fighter.”

Working with MacKenna, Conant came to realize that in trying to be the person that others wanted him to be or expected him to be, whether it was his parents, teachers, coaches or bosses, he was not being true to himself. Talking with us about this, Conant paraphrased a quote from Brene Brown that resonates with him: “You can either walk inside your story and own it, or you stand outside of your story and hustle for your worthiness every day.” Going on, he said, “I needed to write my own story. I needed to figure out what matters most to me and how I want to show up with passion and enthusiasm, and bring my best self to work every day.”

Secondly, MacKenna had him think about the people who had honored him along his life’s journey. Then he challenged Conant to be more like them in honoring others.

The positive emotions Conant experienced from connecting with MacKenna made him more aware of how fully connecting with others affects them in positive ways. He wanted to have that kind of positive effect on people in his life and began being more intentional about connecting. Going forward, he would connect with, support, honor and serve the people in his life in ways that reflected excellence, including his family and friends, and the people with whom he worked.

One practice he embraced as a result of his newfound insights was to actively look for ways to praise and encourage others, and to celebrate their contributions. Not only did he praise people verbally, but he became the most prolific writer of handwritten notes we’ve ever known (which we will share more about in a future article).

In our conversation, he shared: “When I look back on the people who had a profound influence on me – and that’s what leadership is all about, having a profound influence on people to move them in a particular direction that’s good for the enterprise and good for them – they had two characteristics that really jumped out. They had very high standards for me and they loved me to death. They cared.” He noted, “I dealt with a lot of people who had high standards who didn’t care and I dealt with a lot of people who cared a lot but really didn’t lift me up and challenge me. The people who had the most profound impact were, in my language, tough-minded and tender-hearted.” High on his list, Conant told us, are his grandparents and… Neil MacKenna.

“The learning that came out of losing my job was enormous,” Conant declared. It ultimately reframed his view of leadership and prepared him for bigger roles.

Conant would go on to hold a number of senior leader positions, including president of the Nabisco Foods Company, president and CEO of Campbell Soup Company, and chairman of Avon Products. He is now an author, speaker, teacher and executive coach at Conant Leadership.

Your Story: Connecting through Honoring and Serving One Another

Being in environments rich with human connections in which colleagues, friends and family members are honoring and serving one another can be life-changing and rekindle your inner flame.

We can’t give what we don’t have so we need people in our lives who honor, serve and connect with us to support us through the inevitable ups and downs of life, including our time at work. We need people who help us learn, grow and achieve our potential so we can make our contribution to the greater good.

So, as you reflect on your life story up until this point, ask yourself:

1. Who are the people in my life that I have strong connections with and who support me so that I achieve my potential?
2. What is it about them that makes me feel so connected?
3. Do I need to develop more supportive relationships that give me the connections I need to be my best self, do my best work and make my greatest contributions?

After thinking about the supportive relationships in your life, consider how you are supporting others. Ask yourself:

1. Who am I connecting with, honoring and supporting so they will achieve their potential?
2. Through my words and behaviors, can they tell that I care about them as individuals and I believe in them?
3. Am I encouraging them to become an even better person by expecting the best of them and holding them to high standards?

As Conant reminds us in The Blueprint: “[Y]ou can be more like the people who have helped you become the person you are today; you can be that person for the people with whom you live and work. You already know what it looks like. You’ve lived it. And you know, from your memories of these people, that the way they behaved toward you is the way other people also deserve to be treated.”

Creating and fostering a culture of connection in which people are honoring and serving one another will lead to healthier individuals, communities, organizations, and a stronger and better society, something that’s very much in need today.

This article was coauthored by Katharine P. Stallard. 

The post Rekindling the Inner Flame in Others, and in Ourselves appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

My mind is full. These days there is so much information coming at us around the clock, from so many sources. Plus, I love to learn and assimilate new research findings, stories, and perspectives into the work we are doing on connection and organizational culture. Being an integrative thinker has its strengths. It’s certainly stimulating (and sometimes exhausting). I recognize that a downside, especially for someone consistently advocating for the importance of connection in our work lives and personal lives, is that my natural bent to be in my head can be a source of disconnection.

My family will tell you I have a rich inner thought life. My family will also tell you that while I may be physically present, I am not always mentally present in the conversation at-hand. This holiday season, I’m going to work on that!

I recently had the privilege of delivering keynote speeches about cultivating cultures of connection to 500 leaders at Leadership Development Institute meetings of CHRISTUS Health in Corpus Christi and San Antonio, Texas. While there, I heard a thoughtful presentation on mindfulness given by Amy Cunningham, Program Manager for Leadership Development at CHRISTUS Health. What Amy shared helped me better understand the link between mindfulness, connection, and contentment. As I listened, it struck me that relating some of the highlights to insights from neuroscience and endocrinology would be a helpful topic for readers of our blog and monthly newsletter.

Connection and mindfulness

Paying attention on purpose, non-judgmentally, with awareness in the present moment is how Amy defined mindfulness. She used an analogy that speaks to our time to describe what we are up against: Like our smartphones, we have “apps” constantly running on autopilot, draining our battery, and distracting us from being present in the moment. They might be questions that pop up in the chatting that goes on inside of our minds, such as “I wonder what I should have for lunch?,” “Is my daughter prepared for her math test today?,” “What should I write about for my next article?”, “Did my elderly mother make it to her doctor’s appointment this morning?, “Will the weather be nice this evening so I can go outside for a walk?,” “Did I pay that bill that was due today?,” or “Is that so-and-so across the room? I need to get his attention and speak with him before he leaves.”

The ability to be mindful when we are in the presence of others will enable us to be better connectors. To disrupt our automatic tendency to constantly think about ourselves, mindfulness would have us slow down, pay attention, and notice something new about another person. As an exercise, Amy had everyone stand up, find an acquaintance or friend, converse with them for a minute, and intentionally notice something new about the person. She made the point that this type of mindfulness is essential for leaders. I agree. Being distracted or conveying indifference is disconnecting; being present and showing interest connects us.

Amy’s presentation resonated with me because mindfulness and being present have not been strengths of mine. Far too often I am thinking about something I need to do or about a problem I’m trying to solve rather than channeling my full attention on what’s going on in the present. If I don’t keep that in check while interacting with others, it’s bound to break connection. Developing the habit of noticing something new is a helpful “hack” that will boost connection during conversations. Amy also mentioned other practices that promote mindfulness, including paying attention to one’s breathing, progressive relaxation, mindful movement, journaling, and small grounding moments (including wiggling one’s toes).

Here’s a simple mindfulness action she recommended that would be appropriate to take on this month: While you are washing your hands, think of things you are grateful for. When I am stressed, pausing to name several things I am grateful for has helped me shift my mood back to the positive and optimistic. The way our brains work, you cannot feel anxious and grateful at the same time. Practicing gratitude has other benefits too. Over the past two decades, studies have consistently found that people who practice gratitude report fewer symptoms of illness (including depression), more optimism and happiness, stronger relationships, and more generous behavior.

Connection, mindfulness, and contentment

There is another reason I believe mindfulness is a useful tool and it has to do with what goes on at the molecular level of our bodies. I’m often thinking about the future things I want to get done. This future orientation increases the neurotransmitter dopamine in our brain. Dopamine is associated with the pleasure and reward pathways, and the positive emotion that makes us desire what we don’t have and motivates us to go after the things we desire. Noticing the present, savoring the good moments, boosts the positive emotion of contentment and calls on the neurotransmitter serotonin.

Both of these natural chemicals have important and different roles to play. When it comes to being an intentional connector, however, dopamine is the one we should keep our eye on. While it is a good and useful thing to have an internal spark to pursue a goal and persevere on your quest to attain it, too much dopamine is a cause for concern.

In their book The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, authors Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long give this interesting insight: “Dopamine has no standard for good, and seeks no finish line. The dopamine circuits in the brain can be stimulated only by the possibility of whatever is shiny and new, never mind how perfect things are at the moment. The dopamine motto is ‘More’”.

Here’s another characteristic to be aware of: Like certain addictive substances, a person needs more dopamine to produce the same positive emotion over time. In organizations, leaders who have dopaminergic personalities are never satisfied. They continuously push people to achieve unrealistic goals in pursuit of boosting their own personal wealth, power, or status. This obsessive pursuit can overwhelm people working for dopaminergic leaders and create high levels of anxiety, incivility, stress, declining employee engagement, and rising burnout (and may push them toward an addiction of their own as they try to cope). Failing to feed the dopamine habit triggers pains of withdrawal. An individual who is overly reliant on dopamine may be headed for a crash.

In addition to drawing on normal levels of dopamine, the most effective leaders benefit from other sources of positive emotion in the brain that make them more stable and in touch with the people they lead. Lieberman and Long contrast the “future-oriented dopamine” with “present-oriented chemicals, a collection of neurotransmitters we call the Here and Now molecules . . . [which] include serotonin and oxytocin, endorphins and endocannabinoids. . . . As opposed to the pleasure of anticipation via dopamine, these chemicals give us pleasure from sensation and emotion.”

Describing the interplay of these neurotransmitters, the authors explain that “though dopamine and [Here and Now] (‘H&N’) circuits can work together, under most circumstances they counter each other. When H&N circuits are activated, we are prompted to experience the real world around us, and dopamine is suppressed; when dopamine circuits are activated, we move into a future of possibilities and H&Ns are suppressed.”

In his book The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains, Robert H. Lustig sets out the differences between reward (driven by dopamine) and contentment (driven by serotonin). In the table below, I’ve summarized his observations.

Lustig writes, “Reward, when unchecked, can lead us into misery, like addiction. Too much substance use (food, drugs, nicotine, alcohol) or compulsive behaviors (gambling, shopping, surfing the Internet, sex) will overload the reward pathway and lead not just to dejection, destitution, and disease but not uncommonly death as well”.

Keeping reward-seeking behavior in balance clearly matters to our wellbeing, and that’s where serotonin and the other Here and Now sources of positive emotion play a role. These counter-balancing emotions primarily come from healthy relationships at home and work. That’s good news for people who have an abundance of connection in their lives, and yet another reason why using mindfulness techniques to focus on the present is so important.

Will you join me?

As we approach the holiday season here in the U.S., I’m going to intentionally look for something new in each conversation I have while at work and while interacting with my family and friends. My hope is that this practice will help me develop the habit of being more mindful in conversations and ultimately better connect with others.

Will you consider joining me in trying out this practice? By being truly present we will be giving others and ourselves valuable gifts that cannot be bought: the gifts of connection and contentment.

Portions of this article are excepted from the 2nd edition of Connection Culture.

Photo by Kelsey Chance on Unsplash

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Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with the hosts of the Beltway Broadcast, a podcast produced by the Metro DC Chapter of ATD. Our conversation covered a range of topics, including what to look for when evaluating the workplace culture of a potential employer, how to increase the odds of a colleague cooperating with you, how to build connections across departments, and more. 

Connection is more important in our workplaces now than ever. I hope this conversation inspires you to seek out healthy connections for yourself and to encourage a Connection Culture in your own workplace.

Listen to the full episode.

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It’s one thing to know something intellectually—to learn interesting new data, to gain an understanding of why something works the way it does, to be inspired by a message—but if it stops there and you don’t develop heart knowledge, then you’re less likely to see meaningful or lasting change as a result. In our busy and full lives we need to engage both our head and our heart if something is going to “stick” and make a difference. It takes assent and action, knowing and doing, to arrive at “I understand. That makes sense. Now that I’ve experienced it, I get it.” Having a personal experience that validates or reinforces the head knowledge is often what it takes to know it in your heart and for the information to sink in and affect your attitudes, your words or your behaviors going forward.

Consider a toddler being warned by her mother, “That’s hot. Don’t touch it.” You hope the words of instruction—that new piece of head knowledge—will be sufficient, but often it’s not. When the young child gets too close to the heat source, feels the heat of the open flame or touches the side of a hot object and registers pain, that personal experience leads to heart knowledge.

In working with groups to increase connection in the workplace so each individual can thrive, we begin with head knowledge and help people develop a connection mindset. We frame connection as a superpower that makes individuals and groups perform at their best and disconnection as a super-stressor that sabotages performance. We support this information with videos of experiments and explanations of research studies and relevant findings, all to help people process the knowledge we’re sharing. With that foundation in place, we begin to build a connection skill set of attitudes, uses of language and behaviors they might employ to foster an environment that is rich in relational connection. They come away convinced of the importance of connection in their personal and work lives as well as equipped to take action.

But we would be remiss if imparting knowledge was all we did. It’s important that people begin to develop heart knowledge about connection, so we make sure our time together is interactive. We spend time discussing their own past work experiences and how they square with what we’re sharing about connection and disconnection—whether they felt fired up or burned out, and how the team functioned under those circumstances. We incorporate exercises that allow people to experience connection as they practice skills they can use with their colleagues as soon as they are back in their workplace.

The wrong approach: one without the other

Connection seems disarmingly simple and common sense. So why don’t we see more of it? As Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton explain in The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action, their research shows common sense is surprisingly uncommon in practice. In other words, these common sense practices have failed to make it from leaders’ heads to their hearts.

In the context of promoting the need for connection in the workplace and how to create and maintain a connection culture, I (Mike) have witnessed how the knowing-doing gap has held organizations back as leaders have fallen for one or more of the following fallacies (I’ve given each a label to make them easier to remember):

• “Common Sense” fallacy. Because actions that boost connection reflect common sense, they are assumed to be occurring in the organization (when in fact they are not). In this instance, leaders know something intellectually but aren’t emotionally invested enough to follow through.
• “Seduced by a Management Fad” fallacy. Leaders are seduced by sophisticated-sounding management fads, so there is an utter failure to implement simple, commonsense actions that boost connection and have the greatest effect on results.
• “Only Give Me the Practical” fallacy. Leaders want to get straight to the practical and actionable in training. Without grounding people in why connection is important and how it works, actions that boost connection don’t take root. This is akin to doing without knowing.
• “Failure to Measure” fallacy. Leaders see connection as so obvious they fail to measure it, which signals to employees that connection is unimportant, and, as a result, they don’t follow through on actions that boost connection.

The right approach: connecting the two

As humans we are hardwired to connect. More and more scientific studies confirm the benefits that positive connection has on us emotionally and biologically. It’s interesting to note that the brain and heart (and gut) are connected by the vagus nerve, which is the largest nerve in the human body. Our physical head and heart are designed to work together to develop a whole body experience. If we are to overcome the knowing-doing gap we should follow the model of this natural partnership between head and heart, and ensure we are engaging both our intellect and our emotions in a way that drives us to “walk the talk” when it comes to connecting with other people.

We spoke with a surgeon one time about her experience of learning to infuse connection into the team she was leading in the operating room. She shared that she was given the option of working with an executive coach when she became a supervisor at Mayo Clinic. The executive coach helped her to realize that her “driver, get it done, make it better” manner was actually conveying indifference, and that her team didn’t believe she cared about them as people but merely thought of them as means to an end. This was a blind spot for her. She assumed they knew she liked them and they mattered to her. Often the coach would circle back to “How did you feel? How do you think the other person felt?” The coach had her begin taking small steps to express and show that she cared. As her team members responded positively, the physician could feel her actions were connecting with them. The combination of understanding the rationale behind the action and feeling its impact gave her a whole body experience and knowledge that took her understanding to a new and higher level.

Through coaching, the surgeon came to embrace the power of words, emotion and connection. Later, when she moved to another healthcare organization that didn’t provide executive coaching, she hired her own coach out of her pocket and continued to work on her leadership practices, including in the operating room. With continued work on combining head and heart knowledge, she and her team implemented changes that improved patient outcomes.

People may intellectually understand why something is desirable but they need to experience the positive emotions that come from doing it and feel the impact in order for it to settle into the heart.

Conclusion

Don’t let the knowing-doing gap become your story. Be intentional and action-oriented about developing a connection mindset and connection skills then put that knowledge to use! As you work to develop a connection culture in the group you’re in and within your organization, people will experience connection and observe the difference that it makes. As you continue implementing ways to boost connection, watch what happens over time. With each effort you and your colleagues make, you gain momentum toward a fully connected culture.

NOTE: Portions of this article were excerpted from Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy, and Understanding at Work, 2nd edition.

Katharine P. Stallard is a co-author of this article. She is a partner of Connection Culture Group and a contributing author to Connection Culture.

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

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Recently, I had the privilege of being a guest on the Finding Brave podcast hosted by Kathy Caprino. A therapist, career coach, and author, Kathy is on a mission to help listeners – particularly professional women – access the courage they need to honor their true passions, talents, and values in life and work. 

Our conversation focused on the challenges of loneliness and rising stress sparked by the pandemic. We talked about what leaders can do to help support their team members during this challenging time, and what individuals can do to cope.

You can access the podcast on the Finding Brave website or through Apple podcasts. To learn more about Kathy and her work, visit kathycaprino.com.

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Recently, Katie Stallard and I had the opportunity to speak with Tom Loarie, host of the Mentors Radio Show, about career burnout and the role that connection plays in preventing it. It’s an important topic given the high stress levels that many professionals are experiencing today.

If you or someone you know is struggling with burnout, we hope the interview provides some helpful tips in getting back on a path to engagement and happiness. Listen to the full interview.

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Are you addicted to your smartphone? Do you feel the pull to constantly check your messages and news feeds?

Are you addicted to busyness? As soon as you accomplish something, do you immediately focus on the next task or problem to solve? Are you always thinking about what you have coming up and so it’s difficult to be present with and focused on interacting with others?

If your answer is yes to one or more of these questions, you may have or be developing an addiction that’s tied to dopamine, a type of neurotransmitter in your brain.

We tend to think of addictions as ingesting a substance that temporarily makes an individual feel better or more relaxed (being addicted to alcohol or drugs, for example), but it’s broader than that… and sometimes less obvious that a behavior has crossed over into addiction. A review of 83 studies on addiction led Sussman et al. to conclude that nearly half the U.S. population suffers from one or more addictions that have “serious negative consequences.” While the list of addictions studied included substance addictions (alcohol, eating disorders, mood-altering legal and illegal drugs, and tobacco), it also included process addictions (dependence upon busyness and work, exercise, gambling, online gaming or social media, shopping, love and sex).

How the brain functions is complex and I find it fascinating. I am by no means an expert in neuroscience so I rely on the work of scientists and medical professionals and those working in the field of psychology as I assimilate new and relevant findings into the work we do around organizational culture and the importance of connection in our lives. For instance, we teach about the “amygdala hijack” and how getting someone who is anxious or upset to talk acts to calm his or her nervous system and shift brain activity from the person’s amygdala to the prefrontal cortex where rational thought is processed. In Connection Culture, I wrote about how advances in medical imaging have made it possible to know that the part of the brain that processes emotional pain is the same area that processes physical pain.

So, what is dopamine and what role does it play in how we act? To put it simply, neurotransmitters are molecules that behave as chemical messengers in the brain. Dopamine is associated with the pleasure and reward pathways, and the positive emotion that makes us desire what we don’t have and motivates us to go after the things we desire. In their book The Molecule of More, authors Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, and Michael E. Long, give this interesting insight: “Dopamine has no standard for good, and seeks no finish line. The dopamine circuits in the brain can be stimulated only by the possibility of whatever is shiny and new, never mind how perfect things are at the moment. The dopamine motto is ‘More.’” Another aspect of dopamine to be mindful of is that, like certain addictive substances, a person needs more dopamine to produce the same positive emotion over time.

While it is a good and useful thing to have an internal spark to pursue a goal and persevere on your quest to attain it, too much dopamine is a cause for concern. In organizations, leaders who have dopaminergic personalities are never satisfied. They continuously push people to achieve unrealistic goals in pursuit of boosting their own personal wealth, power and/or status. This obsessive pursuit can overwhelm people working for dopaminergic leaders  and create high levels of anxiety, incivility, stress, declining employee engagement and rising burnout (and may push them toward an addiction of their own as they try to cope). Failing to feed the dopamine habit triggers pains of withdrawal. An individual who is overly reliant on dopamine may be headed for a crash.

The best leaders don’t drink from the dopamine fire hydrant. In addition to drawing on normal levels of dopamine, they benefit from other sources of positive emotion in the brain that make them more stable and more effective leaders who are in touch with the people they lead. Lieberman and Long contrast the “future-oriented dopamine” with “present-oriented chemicals, a collection of neurotransmitters we call the Here and Now molecules… [which] include serotonin and oxytocin, endorphins and endocannabinoids. … As opposed to the pleasure of anticipation via dopamine, these chemicals give us pleasure from sensation and emotion.” Describing the interplay of these neurotransmitters, the authors explain that “…though dopamine and [Here and Now] (“H&N”) circuits can work together, under most circumstances they counter each other. When H&N circuits are activated, we are prompted to experience the real world around us, and dopamine is suppressed; when dopamine circuits are activated, we move into a future of possibilities and H&Ns are suppressed.”

I find material from The Hacking of the American Mind by Robert H. Lustig, MD, MSL to be helpful when thinking about dopamine and serotonin. Early in the book Lustig sets out the differences between reward (driven by dopamine) and contentment (driven by serotonin):

• Reward is short-lived. Contentment lasts much longer.
• Reward is visceral in terms of excitement. Contentment is ethereal and calming.
• Reward can be achieved with different substances that stimulate the reward center of the brain. Contentment is usually achieved with deeds (example: graduating from college or having a child who can navigate his or her own path in life).
• Reward occurs with the process of taking (example: winning at gambling). Contentment is often generated through giving (example: giving money to a charity, or giving time to your child, or devoting time and energy to a worthwhile project).
• Reward is yours and yours alone. Your contentment often impacts other people directly and can impact society at large.
• Reward when unchecked can lead us into misery, like addiction. Too much substance use (food, drugs, nicotine, alcohol) or compulsive behaviors (gambling, shopping, surfing the internet, sex) will overload the reward pathway and lead not just to dejection, destitution, and disease but not uncommonly death as well.

Serotonin and the other Here and Now sources of positive emotion primarily come from healthy relationships at home and work. That’s good news for people who have an abundance of connection in their lives. According to Lieberman and Long, “We need H&N empathy to understand what’s going on in other people’s minds, an essential skill for social interaction.” But here’s a big issue affecting workplaces: Recent research reported in Harvard Business Review found that half of CEOs report feeling lonely and 61 percent of them believed it hindered their performance. In an interview titled “Putting Leaders on the Couch,” management expert and psychoanalyst Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries observed that many senior leaders struggle to maintain relationships and balance in their lives. In contrast, “healthy leaders… have the capacity to establish and maintain relationships (including satisfactory sexual relationships). Their lives are in balance, and they can play. They are creative and inventive and have the capacity to be nonconformist. These are the things that are fundamental…”

If you suspect that you, your boss or a colleague may be a dopaminergic personality and you want to develop a deeper understanding of this condition, I recommend you read Lieberman and Long’s The Molecule of More.

If the demands of work — the never-ending “to do” list, the expectation that you will stay engaged 24/7 by phone and laptop — are crowding out time for meaningful relationships, be aware that running a deficit of connection is impacting you on the molecular level, and not for the better. Overreliance on dopamine is powerful so don’t think you can overcome it on your own. Developing into a leader who has the relational support necessary to perform at the top of your game might require the wise advice, encouragement and accountability that a mentor or a good executive or life coach can provide. The effort to become a self-aware and better-balanced leader is well worth the cost. Not only will you become more effective at work, you will cultivate a more satisfying and contented life outside of work. ‍

You May Also Enjoy: 

How Loneliness and Longing for Connection Are Affecting Today’s Leaders

Is the “Silent Killer” Sabotaging Your Performance?

Protecting Your Employees (And Yourself) From the Stress-Connection Gap

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

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It’s ironic that successful self-leadership has more to do with others and less to do with self. In an article I recently shared with the Luminate community, I outline three important lessons about self-leadership that I’ve learned throughout my personal life and professional career. I encourage you to check out the article and the other thought-leadership content from the Luminate community.

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